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We have been retired for 12 years. Seems like the time went in a flash. And tme will pass in a flash. When you say "I will only work a couple more years" several times you may retire to find you are too old to do the things you dreamed of.

I have spoke with a lot of folks who are retired. None of them has ever said "I wish I would have worked longer". Most say "If I knew then what I know now I would have retired earlier".

Thank you all for the great advice and keep it coming. Apparently, my question touched on a subject that is very relevant to many of us. I'm a national sales manager and travel constantly on business. Fortunately, FF miles have allowed us to travel most of the great places in the US including Alaska and Hawaii. We have sailed the Caribbean, Florida and the Keys on a sailboat, which I am selling after 16 years and replacing with a land yacht. It is just the journey of life and we have seen and done a lot. We would love to keep sailing, but the Admiral's arthritis is making it less safe to move around the boat. We just want to slow down and see more of the US before we can't. Then it will be a condo on the beach or in a retirement community. We have saved and planned and know we can manage just fine for the next 30 years regardless of what the market does. I just don't want to spend it, lol.

If you don't want to spend it, why did you save it? To leave for your kids? Give to charity? While it is a change in mindset to go from savings to consumption, I'm not having any issues with the change. Can't take it with me!

I too am about four years away from the Big R. at 62. My wife is 6 yrs. older than me and is already retired with a small modest income. Mine will be about twice as much. I'm in the interviewing process of financial advisors and haven't made a decision yet. The advisors I'm talking with know a MH is in my plan. My question to many of you is were you happy with the first advisor you worked with or did you have a few bad ones along the way? Are you working with a large nationwide firm or prefer smaller privately owned company's?

I guess I've been lucky and was able to retire at 55. I have a spreadsheet showing our monthly expenses combined with an estimate of ROI's for the 2 4o1K'S & 1 IRA. I have included a 2.5% inflationary rate except for health insurance with I put at 10%.

With my retirement and the fact that my previous health insurance policy was canceled due to the requirements of the new Government Healthcare Laws. My insurance went from $400/month to ~$800/month but depending on my annual income I may get tax credits.

Based on my estimates and allowances for living and travel I should be OK. If something happens we'd have to cut back, probably on the travel.

That's why I want to travel now while in reasonably good health and/or mind.

After loosing both my mom & dad in a 6 month period I decided to stop and smell the roses. They smell GOOD!

Luckily all our retirements are set up so we will never touch the principle, only the interest or monthly payout.
I "retired" at 51 and have been drawing my retirement since then although I did go back to work while waiting for the DW to retire. The week she put her papers in her daughter died and we ended up with two grandkids to raise. The oldest is 22 now and out of the house, the youngest is 15 so still three years to go. DW has been on short term and now long term disability and I would REALLY like to go traveling while her health is somewhat stable but can't till the grandson graduates.

At 65 I just retired 9/14 after working 6-7 days a week 10-14 hours a day, with 2 weeks vacation a year. My DW (a school teacher) is younger and will retire in 2 years at 62 with a pension. We will keep the S&B (paid for) and travel these wonderful states at least 5 months a year. My only advise is ""DON'T PUT IT OFF", life is real short and you can't get a second chance. We both had full bady MRI's done in Dec. and took care of most of the things that it revealed, drugs will take care of the rest. June 16 we start our journey with the first planned trip for 3 months to AK. Check that one off the bucket list... So looking forward to the trip....

I retired in 2010 at 65 and my wife followed in 2012. We use Medicare as our primary medical insurance with a supplemental policy. We both have SS and I have a substantial 401k that I've not begun to draw down. DW has a teacher's pension. We are debt free, and have found we really enjoy international travel (6 weeks per year motorcycling in Europe and a month cruising somewhere). We'll begin to use our inherited RV beginning this summer.

We retired with a pension scheme that we had contributed to 100% and with a life expectancy of 25 years (matching our parents) or even longer, one of the main considerations for how we managed that money was realising that 25 years is a looooong time from an investments point of view. So I have continued to invest that money in growth options rather than defensive options. Especially given the very low money interest rates available now, having all our money tied up earning 3 to 5%pa would mean it would barely exceed inflation and wouldn't last anywhere near long enough.
So the growth options are continuing to give double-digit returns and except for one year of the Global Financial Crisis which Australia managed very well anyway, our fund has increased every year despite taking a very comfortable pension out of it. Yes, the fund warns us that growth options run the certainty of a bad year every 5 to 7 years, but the 4 to 6 years in between more than make up for it.

Being 60 and newly retired is not the time to be conservative/defensive about how you manage your life savings. Spread it over several classes of investments, but forget majority cash options for at least 20 years.

Financial advisors? Are they still around? Thought they had all been tarred and feathered and driven out of town years ago.

I won't speak on the financial side since you say you have enough, wife and I both retired two weeks ago same day same time from same employer. We figure we can go back to work if necessary and will monitor funds.

I retired when I was 49, we sold our business but kept the real estate to rent to the new owners. Sold our house and everything we couldn't take with us. A year later the new owners bailed and wanted to sell the business back. We didn't want the business but it left us hanging with a $1700 payment on a building and no tenants. It was back to work for me but I have to add, that was the best year ever of our lives! Wandering where we wanted to and at first workcamped for the first 3 months, then headed towards Quartzsite. I miss those times. What I don't miss is I was to conserative with my estimates of costs and income from workcamping. In the long run this has worked out for us as we surely would have ran out of money after the market crashed. I retired in 2005 and CD's were making me 5% now you are lucky to get .5%, my healtcare was still costing me $750 a month now it would be over $2200 a month.

As exciting as it sounds and it is, but the reality is dont sell anything short to make your numbers work. Don't expect your investments will be making 9% 5 years from now. Last thing you want to do is go back to work cause it is no fun. You get use to having your time all for you. PLUS you wont believe how much your time is filled with other stuff without work. When you go back it is a double wammy! lol

Plan carefully and enjoy your time, people almost always live longer when retiring earlier and as we move into the later years our time is limited so you don't want to miss out on things you wanted.

I enjoyed the planning and anticipation of fulltime and miss it. That first christmas with all our friends who went fulltiming was the most memorable christmas I ever had. No expectations just friends and food and good times. Enjoy !